Archives for October 2014

A group of law firm media relations executives met in New York this week to decide if the industry could develop a collective response to the avalanche of surveys that has landed upon the legal market in recent years.

Law firm surveys are nothing new – they’ve been around in some form for two or three decades – but there’s no question that the volume of them has spiked in the last five years.

Some people, including myself, thought the financial crisis and recession might dampen down enthusiasm for surveys.

If anything, the reverse has happened.

On the media side, legal publishers have faced intense commercial pressure to diversify their revenue sources, and what better way than to launch a new list, ranking or survey?

For their part, lawyers have turned to surveys and rankings as a way of differentiating themselves against rivals in an ever more competitive world.

High-end legal work doesn’t fall into their laps as it did in 2004 – they have to fight harder for it, and many believe – rightly – that in a tiebreaker situation, accolades might tip the balance.

In other words, if a client is faced with two lawyers or firms, all other things being equal, they may opt for the one with better rankings or industry recognition.

I’ve seen this happen several times.

I didn’t attend the LFMP event – Surveyed Senseless – myself, although those that did said there was discussion of what bodies like the LFMP might do to develop an industry response.

Potentially, they would look to place the myriad of products out there into credibility buckets – those deemed to be worth doing, those that might be worth doing, those that are probably best avoided, and the outright scams.

Most law firms do this – or should be doing this – anyway.

I work with several law firms to put policy frameworks in place that help them cope with the plethora of lists, rankings, and surveys.

But I’m skeptical that a one-size-fits-all approach will work.

While the blatant boiler room tactics should be ignored, firms are all different, and a survey that might be seen as speculative or tenuous by one firm may be a good opportunity for another.

Likewise, within the same firm, some practices will secure a high level of industry recognition, other less so, and the latter will be willing to respond to less prestigious surveys.

The key with any policy document is to be flexible – have broad rules, but be willing to bend them.

After all, the credible survey of today was once dismissed as a waste of time.

I worked on the first few editions of Chambers USA in the early 2000s.

Attorneys didn’t want to speak to you.

Most were unwilling to supply any written information – or god forbid, clients.

Some would yell at you for wasting their time.

Fast forward just a few years, and see how things have changed: attorneys fall over themselves to catch Chambers’ attention.

It wasn’t so long ago that Law360 was a cheeky young upstart, now it’s a survey Goliath.

There’s numerous specialist trade surveys that didn’t have much clout a few years ago – now they are respected in their industry niches.

Large firms might pooh pooh co-publishing, sponsored editorial, vanity publishing, whatever you want to call it, in favor of “earned media” but smaller firms with limited or no PR support might be willing to write that check to secure a quick PR fix.

Not content with building the world’s largest lawyer directory, the Seattle-based company has taken the next step on its mission to make legal services more accessible by launching a fixed fee legal service called Avvo Advisor.

For $39, consumers receive 15 minutes of phone time with an experienced lawyer, after accessing the service online or via a free app.

“At Avvo, we want to make access to legal help as routine as getting a medical check-up, and Avvo Advisor is a game-changing step towards that goal,” said Mark Britton, Avvo’s founder and CEO, in a statement.

Interestingly, Avvo said that their research showed that most consumers got the information they needed in less than 15 minutes.

For example: seeking clarity on how to proceed with a legal issue, determining if you need a lawyer, and identifying and preventing potential legal troubles.

To use the service, you go online or download the app.

Then you select the type of legal issue – say divorce – before submitting your payment and contact information.

An attorney calls you back within 15 minutes for the initial advice session.

The three speakers at the inaugural UK event were Gavin Ingham Brooke, the boss of PR agency Infinite Spada, which helped to set up the initiative; Joshua Peck, who launched LFMP in New York in 2002; and Edward Fennell, who writes about law for the Times of London.

McDermott Will & Emery hosted the event at its soaring Heron Tower building.

Law Firm Media Professionals is a group for those active and interested in law firm media relations and communications – in-house executives, consultants and agencies, and reporters and editors.

The standard format is a speaker or panel – usually a journalist from a legal or business publication, a media relations executive, or a specialist vendor/consultant – followed by a discussion and question-and-answer session.

Law firms take it in turns to offer their buildings as host venues, and provide food and drink.

Events are free to attend.

The next LFMP event in New York aims to help law firm marketing departments cope with the surge in surveys.

“Surveyed Senseless – How Legal Media are Ramping Up Industry Contests and What to Do About It” takes place on October 29 2014 at the offices of law firm Dechert in New York.

According to Legal Futures, the rating and review website VouchedFor has recruited 1,300 solicitors, and 1,100 client reviews have already been posted.

VouchedFor set up originally in 2012 as an advice marketplace and review site for UK-based independent financial advisors.

This year, the site expanded to include lawyers for the first time.

The key strength of sites like these, seeking to replicate the likes of TripAdvisor and Yelp, and Avvo in the US when it comes to lawyers, is that customer reviews offer a broad range of opinions, not just that of the directory publisher itself.

Legal comparison and review sites tend to be aimed at consumer/High St practices but VouchedFor also features lawyers at large, commercial firms.

Legal Futures quotes Tom Wheadon, the head of IT and communications at City firm Simmons & Simmons, who was positive about VouchedFor.

VouchedFor has some impressive backers such as former executives of Zoopla, Gumtree, and Capital One.